Seven ‘axle gang’ members handed life term for 2017 gang rape of two women in Gurgaon

GURGAON: The district court on Friday handed rigorous life imprisonment to seven men for the gang-rape of two women they held hostage while robbing a factory in a Pataudi village in 2017.
Suresh Chaudhary, the public prosecutor, said a group of eight men - all members of the notorious 'axle gang' - had raided the factory making iron moulds and tools in the middle of farmland in Mandpura village a little after midnight on January 29, 2017.
Five labourers who stayed on the premises were taken hostage and robbed of their belongings at gunpoint. Two of them were women, who were taken to different rooms inside the factory and gang-raped for hours.
Armed with guns and sharp weapons, the 'axle gang' members fled with Rs 42,000 in cash and other valuables. But before leaving, they cooked themselves chicken curry for dinner and feasted on it.
Gurgaon police formed a special investigation team (SIT) and announced a reward of Rs 1 lakh on the arrest of the gang members. Led by ACP Yashwant Yadav, a police team managed to arrest the accused from a hideout in Delhi. They were identified as Dharmu, Munna, Lambu, Rajbir, Naresh, Raka, Sunil Kumar and Naveen.
Police said Rajbir was the kingpin of the gang. They had told their interrogators that they were involved in at least 150 cases of robbery and murder in various places of Haryana, UP and Rajasthan. There would have been more cases, but many victims did not lodge complaints fearing they would be targeted again, the police said.
In their chargesheet, Gurgaon police mentioned that the arrested accused were "habitual criminals who had committed similar gruesome acts in other states as well".
Additional sessions judge Rahul Bishnoi on Friday convicted seven gang members and acquitted one of them - Naveen - for lack of evidence. The seven were handed the life term and fined Rs 65,000.
Members of the 'axle gang' were believed to be behind some of the most notorious crimes in police records across Delhi-NCR for years. An amorphous group of highway brigands, they stopped vehicles on isolated roads by throwing spanners into the wheels at night. They were known for their brutality - once the occupants came out, the men were thrashed and robbed, and the women gang-raped. In some cases, the victims were even killed.
The Pataudi gang rape was preceded by three other crimes that had shaken NCR and were attributed to the 'axle gang'. On July 28, 2016, a car in which a woman and her teenaged daughter were travelling with their family was ambushed in the middle of the night on NH-91 in Bulandshahr. The women were dragged into fields and gang-raped by the group of robbers.
On May 25, 2017, a family was similarly ambushed in Jewar. A man was shot dead and four women accompanying him were allegedly gang-raped. In August 2016, a shanty in the middle of a field in Dingerheri village of Nuh was raided in the midnight by a gang of robbers that beat a farmer and his wife to death and raped their two nieces.